16 - 20 September 2019

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising an Advanced Training Course on Land Remote Sensing, which will focus on agriculture. The course will be held at Louvain-la-Neuve, in Belgium, from 16 to 20 September 2019.

The course is organised by ESA and hosted by Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium.

The training aims at:

Training the next generation of scientists and professionals on remote sensing for land surfaces, with a focus on agriculture

Explaining the theoretical principles, processing algorithms, data products and their use in agriculture applications

Introducing tools and methods for the exploitation of EO satellite data, in particular the Sentinels

Stimulating and supporting the exploitation of EO data for agriculture remote sensing science and operational applications using the ESA Sen2-Agri

9 - 13 September 2019

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising a Φ-week event focusing on EO Open Science and FutureEO - to review the latest developments in Open Science trends.

The Φ-week, to be held at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, from 9 to 13 September 2019, will include a variety of events (e.g. inspiring talks, workshops, roundtables, startup pitch, hackathons) to connect multi-disciplinary communities - from EO researchers, data scientists, non-space corporates, tech leaders, entrepreneurs, up to startup and innovators - to explore together how EO Open Science and innovation can benefit from the latest digital technologies, and help shape FutureEO missions and services.

The conference is open to:

Scientists, educators, developers and students working in the fields covered by EO Science

Representatives from National, European and International space and value adding industry interested in the new EO Science approach and activities

9 - 11 September 2019

A CEOS WMO-GSICS workshop will be hosted by the UK Space Agency at National Physical Laboratory (NPL), London, UK from 09 to 11 September 2019.

Recent years have seen an increasing urgency from international coordinating bodies such as CEOS, WMO-GSICS, GCOS, climate researchers, and policy makers to establish a space-based climate observing system capable of unambiguously monitoring indicators of change in the Earth's climate, as needed for international mitigation strategies such as the 2015 Paris climate accord. Such an observing system requires the combined and coordinated efforts of the world's space agencies.

To deliver data that can be considered unequivocal on decadal timescales, facilitating policy makers to make decisions in a timely manner, requires improvements to heritage, existing, and in-development space assets. In particular, observations spanning the electromagnetic spectrum from the near-UV to microwave need to be of sufficient accuracy and duration, traceable to the International System of Units (SI), and sampled to ensure global representation in order to detect change in as short a timescale as possible. The harshness of launch and the space environment has to date limited any satellite mission's ability to robustly demonstrate SI traceability on-orbit at the accuracy and confidence levels needed.

An order of magnitude improvement is typically required for robust climate observations. Although not as demanding in terms of long-term accuracies, implementing such a system also facilitates improvements to operational applications, particularly where data harmonisation enables ‘information on-demand' for a wider range of applications such as health, a sustainable food supply, and pollution.

Bringing together experts from space agencies, industry, academia, and policy makers, the intent of this international workshop is a community strategy to quantify the benefits and consequential specifications of a space-based climate observing system along with a roadmap to implementation.

16 - 17 July 2019

The Earth observation scientific community is invited to participate in a European Space Agency (ESA) User Consultation Meeting at the Robinson College, University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom on 16–17 July 2019. This consultation forms a critical input to the decision-making process that will lead to the selection of ESA's ninth Earth Explorer mission.

Two candidate Earth Explorer fast-track missions – FORUM and SKIM – have been undergoing feasibility studies since November 2017, the conclusions of which are detailed in corresponding Reports for Mission Selection which will be published in June 2019.

Thanks to new technical developments, the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) candidate would measure radiation emitted from Earth across the entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Significantly, it measures in the 15–100 micron range, which has never previously been achieved from space.

Please note that since space is limited at the meeting, it is advised to register as soon as possible.

2 - 3 July 2019

The World Soils 2019 User Consultation Meeting on space-based EO tools for mapping and monitoring soils will take place from 2 - 3 July 2019 at ESA ESRIN, Frascati, Italy.

With the advent of operational EO systems such as the European Union Copernicus Program (including the high priority Copernicus expansion missions), the free and open EO data policies as well as cloud-based access and processing capabilities (e.g. DIAS) an EO based Soil Monitoring System appears feasible today.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together stakeholders from the policy and user domain with remote sensing experts to discuss the necessary steps to develop such a system.

3 - 7 June 2019

This year marks the 20th meeting of the GHRSST International Science Team (G-XX). This is a great opportunity to have a forward looking meeting focusing on innovation and challenges to develop the future perspective for GHRSST - most notably with respect to a mix of microwave and thermal infrared satellite capability.

The purpose of the meeting is to:

Bring together scientific and operational SST users and producers to review progress and achievements of SST science and applications within the GHRSST framework;

Look forward towards future innovation and challenges for GHRSST and the SST community over the next 20 years

Open the meeting to everybody but is especially relevant to SST experts and the international community actively involved in SST science and applications

Use plenary discussions and keynote talks to tackle specific issues as well as poster sessions and panel discussions to promote discussion.

G-XX will be followed immediately by the 8th CEOS SST-VC meeting. The meeting takes place at the very end of the GHRSST International Science Team meeting so that SST-VC members can collate all of the scientific and technical progress from the week and develop a coherent strategy for the year ahead, linking GHRSST and CEOS to advance the needs of SST users around the world.

13 - 17 May 2019

ESA is pleased to invite you to participate in the 2019 Living Planet Symposium. The event, held every three years, will take place on 13–17 May 2019 at the MiCo Milano Congressi in Milan, Italy. The Symposium is organised with the support of the Italian Space Agency.

Attracting thousands of scientists and data users, ESA's Living Planet Symposia are amongst the biggest Earth observation conferences in the world.

The Living Planet Symposium 2019 promises to be bigger and wider ranging than ever before. The event will not only see scientists present their latest findings on Earth's environment and climate derived from satellite data, but will also focus on Earth observation's role in building a sustainable future and a resilient society.

Participants will also be able to explore how emerging technologies are revolutionising the use of Earth observation, creating new opportunities for public and private sector interactions, and how business and the economy can benefit from this new epoch.

7 - 12 April 2019

The European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly 2019 will as usual take place in Vienna, Austria, from 07 to 12 April 2019, bringing together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences.

The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geoscience. For more information, please check the General Assembly section of the website.